


rainy days

by lifetimeoflaughter



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, the hargreeves shouldve been nicer to vanya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifetimeoflaughter/pseuds/lifetimeoflaughter
Summary: It's been a long, long day for Vanya Hargreeves.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 162





	rainy days

**Author's Note:**

> tw: mentions of suicidal thoughts

It’s raining on the walk to Leonard’s house. It is absolutely coming down. 

Vanya stops by a lamppost and considers the fact that huh, _it’s pretty much always raining when I go out. Just another side-effect of being me, I suppose._

She leans against the cold metal, under the bright yellow of the lamp bulb. Staring up at the sky, watching the millions of tiny raindrops fall in time, pitter-patter against the sidewalk. They made a sort of music, and even if she was going to end up soaking wet for it, she didn’t really mind. The rain was comforting in this very lonely sort of way, where it made the troubles inside seem relatively small to the wrath of Mother Nature. She remembers when she was a kid and it was raining- something in the house would change. Grace would make cookies, and sometimes they’d end up actually sitting together, in the library or the drawing room downstairs. She remembers the thunder and the lightning in the background as Diego whirled a knife in the air, lying flat on a sofa, or Five and Ben competing in a game of chess, or Allison painting her nails while Klaus looked on enviously. She remembers that the fights used to die down, that whatever hatred they held for her in their hearts vanished, even if just for a few hours at a time. 

She remembers that it used to get better. That Reginald would stop training, mainly because the rain was practically flooding the outdoors, but would desist indoor training as well at times if he saw there being no point when all the Academy refused to listen. And on those rare occasions when fun wasn’t limited to half an hour on Saturdays, she remembers being grateful for her siblings and her android mother. 

The training decreased as they got older. After Five vanished and Ben- Ben passed, the team was called out on missions less and less. Allison became more invested in her acting. Klaus was high nearly all the time, and Diego was angry all the time. Luther was the only one still focused on the missions.

She remembers a time soon after their sixteenth birthday. Those days, their father had almost entirely given up on trying to train them or even send them on missions, and their whole house hung in silence - that is, unless Diego was having target practice with the little glass ornaments around the house. It had been coming down for a while, and the weatherman said it was likely to go all day. They were stuck inside. They ended up downstairs, Mom making some baked item and Pogo with their father in his study. Luther sat in the corner, tapping his fingers in some thoughtless rhythm, which annoyed Allison.

“Could you _stop that_?” 

Luther looked up, affronted. “But I haven’t even done anything! What’s got you so mad?” he questioned, still drumming his fingers. 

She remembers watching the chaos unfold.

“I asked you to _stop it.”_ Allison’s voice came out edged and harsh. Luther was still tap-tapping on the ground, to which Allison set her jaw and started, 

“I heard a rumo- HEY!” Her rumor was cut short by the _shhhk_ of Diego’s knife, landing solidly in the wood panels behind her. 

“Hey!” Now it was Luther’s turn to intervene. Diego turned on Luther, with a look of confusion and anger on his face. 

“I was just trynna protect you, man! She was gonna rumor you!”

“You could have hurt her-” “If I wanted to hurt her, she _would’ve been hurt._ ” “You can’t just go around throwing knives at people, Diego!” “You can’t tell me what to DO, Luther, and why are you defending her anyway? What, did she rumor you into-” Diego was cut off by Luther ramming him into a chokehold against the wall. At some point, Klaus had started laughing like a maniac behind them, like he was watching the world’s funniest play. Allison stood frozen in shock, and then she couldn’t help herself.

“Stop! Stop it, both of you!” She blurts out, and all eyes swivel to her. Allison just rolls her eyes and turns away; Luther looks like he’s never heard her voice before. Diego sneers and says:

“Shut up, Vanya. Just go back to reading your dumb book, or breaking our ears with that violin of yours, but shut up, for God’s sake.”

Behind Klaus has stopped laughing, but she can hear him mumbling “…yeah, well she’s gotta stand up for herself…he’s being kinda mean though…yeah, no…” 

She feels her hands clenching into fists, feels the hot tears build up, and then she remembers she’s not there anymore, she’s standing in the rain under a streetlight, soaking wet. The streetlamp flickers and turns off; Vanya sighs and moves along. She’s still quite far from his house- and is she even going in the right direction? God, she can’t do anything right.

As she trudges on in the pouring rain, her mind regurgitates her siblings’ distaste for her, even now. “Why is she here? after what she did?” “Got material for your sequel?” “She doesn’t get a vote.” “You’re a liability. You could’ve gotten us killed.” Diego’s voice repeats in her head, over and over. She hears Allison saying “You separate yourself from everything and everyone.” “You can’t blame your problems on anyone but yourself.” “If I wanted advice, it wouldn’t be from you, Vanya.” Even Five, Five who she thought could possibly not hate her, even all he cared about was her being ordinary. And then he vanished, just like that. The first chair, today. Violin was all she had, and even that she was terrible at. 

She comes to a stop, halting in the middle of the sidewalk. The rain has let up slightly, and she finds a bus stop to sit, for a little bit of shelter. 

She didn’t really understand why was she was still alive. What was she waiting for? _Why_ was she still waiting? She had figured out years ago that her siblings didn’t give a shit about her, at least not the ones she still had around. Writing that book five years ago had been the only thing keeping her going, but that was written, and published, and now they hated her for it. She wasn’t surprised, honestly- she had hated herself at that moment when she had sent it off to the publishing house. Why was she still alive? She had no one to care for her, whether she lived or died. She could’ve run away as a child and Reginald wouldn’t even have noticed the extra empty seat at the table. To everyone, nearly everyone in her life, she was an inconvenience. She was replaceable, worthless, unusable, _ordinary_. How she hated that word. 

She was just so tired of being ordinary. Of waking up every morning to bags under her eyes and unable to summon a smile, wearing the same navy overcoat to rehearsal and back again, listening to the floorboards creak and the pipes groan in her little apartment and repeat it all over again. No one saw anything in her, anything special or lovable or unique. And how could they? All Vanya saw staring back at her in the mirror was a sad, worthless little failure, ordinary to her core. Useless at the violin, and at making friends, and making her siblings happy. Useless at anything other than breathing, basically. 

She wanted to stop. To stop breathing, to stop existing. To throw herself off a building, or jump in front of a car. To overdose on some pills, or hang herself from the ceiling. Maybe a gunshot to the head would do it. Whichever way, she wanted it to happen. She’d been wanting to run away since she was a child, but as she got older, she realized it wasn’t just her siblings treating her that way. She’d become so quiet and introverted, it was hard to connect, ha, even TALK to anyone. No one would care for her, and so her only other option was death. The quieter she got, the more she thought about it - a way to finally stop everything, To just not exist. The shadow, the stain known as Vanya Hargreeves would be buried deep under the earth, with nothing to show for it, no one to mourn her. And maybe it would be better that way. maybe people wouldn’t have to put up with her annoying silences and awkwardness. Maybe her siblings would be happier knowing they didn’t have a worthless person in their lists of people to care about. They’d probably forget her an hour after, anyway. 

She’d been thinking about it since she was fourteen. She’d even considered throwing herself off the top of the Academy, but if she survived, she’d never hear the end of her attempt at attention-seeking, or the mess she’d made in front of the Academy. Thought about starving herself, but Grace’s programming meant that she would not rest until all the children were fed. 

Sitting there, in the rain, cold and alone, Vanya Hargreeves decides that death was her only escape from this misery of a life she lived. She closes her eyes and remembers those small moments from when she was very little - the smell of cookies in the kitchen, Five smiling when he worked out an equation, Allison giving her a crummy home-made bracelet for their sixth birthday. 

Those days were long gone. 

She gets up and starts walking again. If no-one would care for her in life, they wouldn’t in death either. That was just the nature of things. She was headed to Leonard’s house right now, so maybe it was a good idea to spend some time with the one person who maybe actually gave her a bit of thought. 

When it rained, it poured.

Maybe when the next time the rain fell, Vanya would fall with it. 


End file.
